I don't think I had ever had scones before moving to the UK. As I am a self-confessed carboholic of the worst kind, it was obviously meant to be that I would fall in love with them. But I'm also very picky with my scones, I won't just have any old store bought, mass produced scones. They shouldn't be to doughy and soft, they should have a crisp crust and be crumbly on the inside. Sweet scones should be filled with heaps of clotted cream and jam and cheese scones should have heaps of cheese on the top, be nice and crusty and soft and fluffy inside.
My previous job cafeteria had really good cheese scones, me and Best Friend used to start our mornings with a coffee and cheese scone. You knew it would be a great day if the cheese scones were still warm. My current job is close to a Marks&Spencers and their bakery cheese scones are pretty good too, although not top notch. In fact I consume so many cheese scones, whenever any of my colleagues are going over to the M&S they automatically ask me if I want them to bring over a cheese scone for me. Can you say "In need of an intervention"?
So after spending loads of money on cheese scones I thought how silly is that when I could make my own for less. It turns out mine didn't work out much less, as ingredients were about £0.37 per home made scone versus £0.63 for the store bought ones in M&S, but it's still a bit of a saving. This way I do know what goes into my scones though. I use the expensive butter and flour, I could drive the price of ingredients down a bit if I used store brand ingredients. I'm admittedly a bit of a butter snob, I am sure there has to be a difference in quality as store brand butter is almost half the price compared to the brand I like to use. I should probably do a double blinded, placebo controlled trial, although I'm not quite sure how to do it in practice. Bake with a blindfold on?
I usually turn to my traditional and no fail cheese scone recipe, but this time I thought I would try something a bit different. I used a recipe from Jamie's Great Britain. It's a recipe that is originally designed for a sweet fruit scone, but I just removed the fruit and sugar and added cheese hoping that they would come out all right. I also like my scones big, so I used a big cutter instead of making the more traditionally sized small scones. I just don't see a point of eating two smaller scones when you could have one large one. Obviously, eating just one small one is not an option.
As with any other dough that requires butter to be rubbed into flour, you should work relatively quickly to keep the butter cold as that will create the flake in the scones. Also, the less you work the dough the better. I don't use a rolling pin to roll it out, just my hands to pat it. Also, when you use the cutter to cut the scones, just press it straight down, don't rotate it as this will impair how the scones rise in the oven.
Crumbly cheese scones (makes 7 large ones):
150 g cold unsalted butter
500 g self raising flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
4 tbsp milk
100 g grated cheddar (set aside 1/4 to sprinkle on top) £1
The howto:
Add butter, flour, baking powder and salt in to a large bowl. Using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour mixture to create a rough, crumbly mixture. Make a well in the middle of the mix and add eggs and milk and give a quick mix. Resist the urge to mess too much with it. Leave to stand for 15 minutes in the fridge, with the bowl covered with clingfilm. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. Roll out to about 3 cm (just over an inch) thickness, cut out large or small scones and place on a baking sheet. Brush with milk and grate cheese onto the scones. Bake for about 20 minutes, until the cheese is golden. If you make smaller scones, decrease the baking time.
The verdict:
These scones didn't rise sky high like I had hoped they would. Turns out if I had read the the recipe properly, it called for self-raising flour, not regular. And people not following instructions is one of my pet peeves... But one thing they certainly were was flaky. They had that absolutely lovely melt-in-your mouth flakiness so I will certainly use this recipe in the future as well, and alternate with my easy bake version. And make with self-rising flour next time. They are at their best when eaten when still warm, with a bit of butter.
We have reached the end of bank holiday season. It's been so wonderful to have Easter and the two May bank holidays so close together, so many short working weeks has made this spring just fly by. And now it's almost the end of May, I swear someone robbed me of at least two weeks as the month has just flown by. May is such a special month to me, it's my birthday as well as the birthday of many good friends. This year I have preponed (not even Google seems to be sure if this is a real word or not...) my birthday to today, as the UK has been so rude as not to have a bank holiday on my actual birthday. I feel very resentful about this, as I enjoyed my bank holiday birthday last year. So I decided to make myself a delicious birthday breakfast today instead.
I think coming up to a birthday will give you the right to muse a bit about your life so far. In fact, two short birthdays ago my life was very different. My birthday fell on a Sunday, and I decided to bake some blueberry and strawberry scones to celebrate. The scones turned out to be a complete disaster as I forgot to turn the heat on in the oven, I had only turned on the lamp, and after 20 minutes of nothing happening with the scones in the oven, I suspected something was wrong. When I finally managed to bake the scones they were rather ugly blobs. There I was sitting in my tiny shoebox penthouse apartment all alone with not the slightest idea in the world that my life was about to change. Back in those days I still worked at the Wellcome Trust, and my bestest friend lived in the same city with me. A month later I went on the first date with the Culinary Consultant. Exactly a year later, I had finished my job contract, was about to start a new job and was cleaning out my apartment as I moved in together with the Culinary Consultant in his bachelor pad. In fact, last year's bank holiday Monday was the last day I spent in my old place. Since then I have changed jobs again and I'm rather happy I did. Last July we moved from the tiny bachelor pad to our countryside home, which to me is a dream come true. And we can still put up with the sight of each other. As I'm enjoying my slightly early birthday breakfast, I can't help but think I might be one of the luckiest people alive.
The recipe for my yummy breakfast is from the ever so deliciously looking The English Kitchen blog. I know I end up making so many recipes from that blog, but what can you do, her taste is really close to mine in so many things! This is what I love about blogging and following blogs, it takes a while of reading a blog until you know whether you want to follow it or not. And after a while you get curious about the people who write the blog. And they have all these amazing stories and experiences and you almost feel like you know them. The lady writing The English Kitchen seems like one of those people you could just sit down and have tea with and she would be the most lovely person on the world. And her recipes are always delicious, and every time I have tried them they turn out perfect.
Blueberry and lemon quick breakfast buns (serves 6-8):
250 g all purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
finely grated zest of 1/2 lemon
pinch of salt
3 tbsp sugar
40 g butter
1 large egg
75 ml buttermilk (I made my own by adding a tsp of vinegar to milk)
a splash of buttermilk for brushing
For the filling:
12 tbsp sugar (I only used 8 as it seemed enough...)
55 g butter
zest from 1 lemon
250 g blueberries
For the glaze
195 g icing sugar
grated zest from 1/2 lemon
juice from 1 lemon
15 g softened butter
a splash of milk
The howto:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C and butter a oven proof dish. The original recipe says oval dish 12 inches and 8 inches at it's widest. I used a rectangular 10x6.5 in dish, which left a bit of room between the buns, but they expanded to fill that extra room. Mix the flour, baking powder, grated lemon zest, salt and sugar in a bowl. Using your fingers, mix in the butter until the consistency of coarse sand. Mix the egg and buttermilk, and mix into the dough. Only mix until the dough has just come together. If needed, add another splash of milk if the dough is too dry.
To prepare the filling, mix the sugar, butter and lemon zest in small bowl, and rub everything together using your fingers.
Knead the dough once or twice on the table. Then pat the dough out into a rectangle about 8 times 12 inches and 1/2 in thick. I did this on a parchment sheet to help the upcoming rolling step. Spread the flavoured butter on the dough and add the blueberries, gently pressing the filling into to dough. Use the parchment paper to roll the dough into a tight roll along the long side. Pinch the dough together at the seam to ensure that the filling stays in the roll. Cut the roll into eight slices using a sharp knife and place in the oven proof dish. Brush with buttermilk and bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden and bubbling.
While the buns are baking, prepare the glaze. Mix the ingredients for the glaze, adding enough milk to make it a runny consistency. Spread onto the buns when they come out of the oven, and let stand for a few minutes. Serve warm.
The verdict:
These quick buns are amazing. I had one for breakfast, and then picked away at a few during the day as I couldn't pass the dish with the buns without having a spoonful or two. They are the easy way out if you love buns for breakfast but don't want to wait for the yeasted kind to proof as you once again forgot to pre-make the dough the previous evening. They are sweet and juicy. And the lemon goes really well with the blueberries. Often recipes that are named "lemon" something only have a very faint flavour of lemon. This recipe has enough lemon so that you can taste it. I thought the scone dough would be difficult to work with, but it was really easy to roll and kept it's shape really well during baking. There is quite a lot of glaze, so you might want to consider only making half of it if you are a fan of light glazes, although I think the glaze is the crowning glory, so I was happy to have loads of it.
I usually begin my weekend morning by browsing all the blogs I follow. The other week, I stumbled upon a yummy looking Rhubarb Roly Poly recipe from The English Kitchen. Although I had promised myself I wouldn't bake anything that weekend, the recipe got me thinking of the first stalks of rhubarb out there in the garden. However, I felt I didn't want to wait for dessert but wanted something immediately, so I googled rhubarb scones and came across this delicious sounding recipe for Vanilla glazed rhubarb oatmeal scones on the Kitchen Daily blog. I took a liking to the recipe as you can almost convince yourself they are a healthy sort of treat with the oatmeal and whole wheat flour. Well, at least I can, as I'm very good at self deception. So there I was, on a Sunday morning with fresh warm scones by 8.30 in the morning. Good thing our garden faces out to fields. Our neighbours would have thought I was stark raving mad if they had seen me out there in the garden in my pink monkey robe and knife in hand, bending down over the rhubarb plant at 7.30 in the morning. But when a craving hits, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.
I have used the recipe almost unaltered, although I did halve it as 16 fresh scones in my kitchen on a Sunday morning didn't seem like the safest of prospects.
Vanilla glazed rhubarb oatmeal scones (makes 8, recipe from the Kitchen Daily blog):
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup oats (not the quick cooking type)
1 tbsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
170 g butter, cubed
1/4 cup buttermilk (I made my own by adding a splash of vinegar into regular milk)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup chopped rhubarb
1 egg for egg wash and caster sugar for sprinkling on top
Glaze:
1/2 cup icing sugar
2 1/2 tbsp milk
1/4 tsp vanilla paste
The howto:
Preheat oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F). Mix the flour, oats, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bow. Add the cubed cold butter and using your fingers, crumble everything together until the texture of coarse sand. In another bowl, mix the buttermilk, vanilla and egg, and add to the flour and butter mixture. Mix just enough to bring the dough together. Add the rhubarb. Pat the dough to form a rectangle about 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick. Cut into eight pieces (first into four pieces once length- and once widthwise and then across the diagonals so you get eight triangles). Place triangles on a parchment paper lined baking sheet, and brush with egg. Sprinkle caster sugar on top. Bake for 20-22 minutes until baked and golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes on a wire rack.
While the scones are cooling, mix together the ingredients for the glaze and drizzle onto the scones. You can adjust the proportion of icing sugar to milk depending on how thick you like your glaze. Serve while still warm with a cup of tea or coffee.
The verdict:
These scones were a perfect treat for a Sunday morning as well as a perfect way to enjoy the first crop of rhubarb this spring. The rhubarb stalks were still thin and tender and really tangy. The scones were wonderfully crumbly inside with a crisp crust formed by the sugar and egg wash. The combination of the sweet vanilla glaze and sour rhubarb was perfect. Also, the oats and whole wheat flour give them a rougher texture than regular scones, along with loads more flavour. Not a completely innocent treat with all that butter, but a great way to treat yourself on a lazy weekend morning.
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